BENGALURU: An innovative career simulation game for the underprivileged youth, developed by non-profit organisation Quest Alliance, has been selected as one of the top 100 most impactful education innovations in the world.
The career simulation game ‘Career Quest’ has been featured as one of the ‘top 100 most impactful and scalable education innovations in the world’ by HundrED Global Collection 2024. The award will be given away at a ceremony in Finland.
Primarily designed for students of high school, ITI or Vocational courses, the game is an immersive and experiential career exploration simulation which offers exposure to different career journeys. This has been developed to help students from vulnerable sections of the society navigate different career choices, a statement said.
The game has been tested with over 1,000 students across the country and was found to be effective in helping students make informed career choices and understand likely feedback from parents, peers and society on their choices.
The Career Quest game helps students rehearse various career scenarios through simulations and evaluate the role of gender stereotypes, peer pressure and parental negotiations in their decision-making process. The game is specially designed to help lakhs of students from low socio-economic sections who struggle with career path navigation.
Quest Alliance CEO Aakash Sethi said that the game aids in bringing out dilemmas that influence career decisions and allows a student to play out different scenarios in the process of career exploration.
The characters are drawn from different cultural backgrounds to suit different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds of students. The students can choose male, female or transgender characters. There are a total of eight characters to choose from and the game is available in English and six Indian languages.
Career Quest game helps students evaluate how parents, siblings, friends and relatives in a particular socio-cultural background would react to their decisions and choices. Sethi added, “Many students struggle to evaluate career options and navigate through various career scenarios. Lack of exposure, gender stereotypes, peer pressure and parental negotiations make this journey a difficult one”.
“Students understand the impact of their career choices and decisions only in retrospect and it would be too late to reverse their decisions. Career Quest is a simulator where they can rehearse potential real-life scenarios and make well informed career choices. This saves a lot of time and anxiety for students,” added Sethi.
Quest Alliance is also in the process of tying up with many companies to roll out this game for students, the statement said..